“No; I will go alone this time,” replied the mother with dignity.
Her coupé now found its way to Nankeen Square without difficulty, and she sent up a card, which Mrs. Lapham received in the presence of her daughter Penelope.
“I presume I’ve got to see her,” she gasped.
“Well, don’t look so guilty, Mother,” joked the girl; “you haven’t been doing anything so very wrong.”
“It seems as if I had. I don’t know what’s come over me. I wasn’t afraid of the woman before, but now I don’t seem to feel as if I could look her in the face. He’s been coming here of his own accord, and I fought against his coming long enough, goodness knows. I didn’t want him to come. And as far forth as that goes, we’re as respectable as they are; and your father’s got twice their money, any day. We’ve no need to go begging for their favor. I guess they were glad enough to get him in with your father.”
“Yes, those are all good points, Mother,” said the girl; “and if you keep saying them over, and count a hundred every time before you speak, I guess you’ll worry through.”
Mrs. Lapham had been fussing distractedly with her hair and ribbons, in preparation for her encounter with Mrs. Corey. She now drew in a long quivering breath, stared at her daughter without seeing her, and hurried downstairs. It was true that when she met Mrs. Corey before, she had not been awed by her; but since then she had learned at least her own ignorance of the world, and she had talked over the things she had misconceived and the things she had shrewdly guessed so much that she could not meet her on the former footing of equality. In spite of as brave a spirit and as good a conscience as woman need have, Mrs. Lapham cringed inwardly, and tremulously wondered what her visitor had come for. She turned from pale to red, and was hardly coherent in her greetings; she did not know how they got to where Mrs. Corey was saying exactly the right things about her son’s interest and satisfaction in his new business, and keeping her eyes fixed on Mrs. Lapham’s, reading her uneasiness there, and making her feel, in spite of her indignant innocence, that she had taken a base advantage of her in her absence to get her son away from her and marry him to Irene. Then, presently, while this was painfully revolving itself in Mrs. Lapham’s mind, she was aware of Mrs. Corey’s asking if she was not to have the pleasure of seeing Miss Irene.
“No; she’s out, just now,” said Mrs. Lapham. “I don’t know just when she’ll be in. She went to get a book.” And here she turned red again, knowing that Irene had gone to get the book because it was one that Corey had spoken of.
“Oh! I’m sorry,” said Mrs. Corey. “I had hoped to see her. And your other daughter, whom I never met?”
“Penelope?” asked Mrs. Lapham, eased a little. “She is at home. I will go and call her.” The Laphams had not yet thought of spending their superfluity on servants who could be rung for; they kept two girls, and a man to look after the furnace, as they had for the last ten years. If Mrs. Lapham had rung in the parlor, her second girl would have gone to the street door to see who was there. She went upstairs for Penelope herself, and the girl, after some rebellious derision, returned with her.
Mrs. Corey took account of her, as Penelope withdrew to the other side of the room after their introduction, and sat down, indolently submissive on the surface to the tests to be applied, and following Mrs. Corey’s lead of the conversation in her odd drawl.
“You young ladies will be glad to be getting into your new house,” she said politely.
“I don’t know,” said Penelope. “We’re so used to this one.”
Mrs. Corey looked a little baffled, but she said sympathetically, “Of course, you will be sorry to leave your old home.”
Mrs. Lapham could not help putting in on behalf of her daughters: “I guess if it was left to the girls to say, we shouldn’t leave it at all.”
“Oh, indeed!” said Mrs. Corey; “are they so much attached? But I can quite understand it. My children would be heartbroken too if we were to leave the old place.” She turned to Penelope. “But you must think of the lovely new house, and the beautiful position.”
“Yes, I suppose we shall get used to them too,” said Penelope, in response to this didactic consolation.
“Oh, I could even imagine your getting very fond of them,” pursued Mrs. Corey patronizingly. “My son has told me of the lovely outlook you’re to have over the water. He thinks you have such a beautiful house. I believe he had the pleasure of meeting you all there when he first came home.”
“Yes, I think he was our first visitor.”
“He is a great admirer of your house,” said Mrs. Corey, keeping her eyes very sharply, however politely, on Penelope’s face, as if to surprise there the secret of any other great admiration of her son’s that might helplessly show itself.
“Yes,” said the girl, “he’s been there several times with Father; and he wouldn’t be allowed to overlook any of its good points.”
Her mother took a little more courage from her daughter’s tranquillity.
“The girls make such fun of their father’s excitement about his building, and the way he talks it into everybody.”
“Oh, indeed!” said Mrs. Corey, with civil misunderstanding and inquiry.
Penelope flushed, and her mother went on: “I tell him he’s more of a child about it than any of them.”
“Young people are very philosophical nowadays,” remarked Mrs. Corey.
“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Lapham. “I tell them they’ve always had everything, so that nothing’s a surprise to them. It was different with us in our young days.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Corey, without assenting.
“I mean the Colonel and myself,” explained Mrs. Lapham.
“Oh yes—yes!” said Mrs. Corey.
“I’m sure,” the former went on, rather helplessly, “we had to work hard enough for everything we got. And so we appreciated it.”
“So many things were not done for young people then,” said Mrs. Corey, not recognizing the early-hardships standpoint of Mrs. Lapham. “But I don’t know that they are always the better for it now,” she added vaguely, but with the satisfaction we all feel in uttering a just commonplace.
“It’s rather hard living up to blessings that you’ve always had,” said Penelope.
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Corey distractedly, and coming back to her slowly from the virtuous distance to which she had absented herself. She looked at the girl searchingly again, as if to determine whether this were a touch of the drolling her son had spoken of. But she only added: “You will enjoy the sunsets on the Back Bay so much.”
“Well, not unless they’re new ones,” said Penelope. “I don’t believe I could promise to enjoy any sunsets that I was used to, a great deal.”
Mrs. Corey looked at her with misgiving, hardening into dislike. “No,” she breathed vaguely. “My son spoke of the fine effect of the lights about the hotel from your cottage at Nantasket,” she said to Mrs. Lapham.
“Yes, they’re splendid!” exclaimed that lady. “I guess the girls went down every night with him to see them from the rocks.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Corey, a little dryly; and she permitted herself to add: “He spoke of those rocks. I suppose both you young ladies spend a great deal of your time on them when you’re there. At Nahant my children were constantly on them.”
“Irene likes the rocks,” said Penelope. “I don’t care much about them—especially at night.”
“Oh, indeed! I suppose you find it quite as well looking at the lights comfortably from the veranda.”
“No; you can’t see them from the house.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Corey. After a perceptible pause, she turned to Mrs. Lapham. “I don’t know what my son would have done for a breath of sea air this summer, if you had not allowed him to come to Nantasket. He wasn’t willing to leave his business long enough to go anywhere else.”
“Yes, he’s a born businessman,” responded Mrs. Lapham enthusiastically. “If it’s born in you, it’s bound to come out. That’s what the Colonel is always saying about Mr. Corey. He says it’s born in him to be a businessman, and he can’t help it.” She recurred to Corey gladly because she felt that she had not said enough of him when his mother first spoke of his connection with the business. “I don’t believe,” she went on excitedly, “that Colonel Lapham has ever had anybody with him that he thought more of.”
“You have all been very kind to my son,” said Mrs. Corey in acknowledgment, and stiffly bowing a little, “and we feel greatly indebted to you. Very much so.”
At these grateful expressions Mrs. Lapham reddened once more, and murmured that it had been very pleasant to them, she was sure. She glanced at her daughter for support, but Penelope was looking at Mrs. Corey, who doubtless saw her from the corner of her eyes, though she went on speaking to her mother.
“I was sorry to hear from him that Mr.—Colonel?—Lapham had not been quite well this summer. I hope he’s better now?”
“Oh yes, indeed,” replied Mrs. Lapham; “he’s all right now. He’s hardly ever been sick, and he don’t know how to take care of himself. That’s all. We don’t any of us; we’re all so well.”
“Health is a great blessing,” sighed Mrs. Corey.
“Yes, so it is. How is your oldest daughter?” inquired Mrs. Lapham. “Is she as delicate as ever?”
“She seems to be rather better since we returned.” And now Mrs. Corey, as if forced to the point, said bunglingly that the young ladies had wished to come with her, but had been detained. She based her statement upon Nanny’s sarcastic demand; and, perhaps seeing it topple a little, she rose hastily, to get away from its fall. “But we shall hope for some—some other occasion,” she said vaguely, and she put on a parting smile, and shook hands with Mrs. Lapham and Penelope, and then, after some lingering commonplaces, got herself out of the house.
Penelope and her mother were still looking at each other, and trying to grapple with the effect or purport of the visit, when Irene burst in upon them from the outside.
“Oh, Mama! wasn’t that Mrs. Corey’s carriage just drove away?”
Penelope answered with her laugh. “Yes! You’ve just missed the most delightful call, ’Rene. So easy and pleasant every way. Not a bit stiff! Mrs. Corey was so friendly! She didn’t make me feel at all as if she’d bought me, and thought she’d given too much; and Mother held up her head as if she were all wool and a yard wide, and she would just like to have anybody deny it.”
In a few touches of mimicry she dashed off a sketch of the scene: her mother’s trepidation, and Mrs. Corey’s well-bred repose and polite scrutiny of them both. She ended by showing how she herself had sat huddled up in a dark corner, mute with fear.
“If she came to make us say and do the wrong thing, she must have gone away happy; and it’s a pity you weren’t here to help, Irene. I don’t know that I aimed to make a bad impression, but I guess I succeeded—even beyond my deserts.” She laughed; then suddenly she flashed out in fierce earnest. “If I missed doing anything that could make me as hateful to her as she made herself to me—” She checked herself, and began to laugh. Her laugh broke, and the tears started into her eyes; she ran out of the room, and up the stairs.
“What—what does it mean?” asked Irene in a daze.
Mrs. Lapham was still in the chilly torpor to which Mrs. Corey’s call had reduced her. Penelope’s vehemence did not rouse her. She only shook her head absently, and said, “I don’t know.”
“Why should Pen care what impression she made? I didn’t suppose it would make any difference to her whether Mrs. Corey liked her or not.”
“I didn’t, either. But I could see that she was just as nervous as she could be, every minute of the time. I guess she didn’t like Mrs. Corey any too well from the start, and she couldn’t seem to act like herself.”
“Tell me about it, Mama,” said Irene, dropping into a chair.
* * *
Mrs. Corey described the interview to her husband on her return home. “Well, and what are your inferences?” he asked.
“They were extremely embarrassed and excited—that is, the mother. I don’t wish to do her injustice, but she certainly behaved consciously.”
“You made her feel so, I daresay, Anna. I can imagine how terrible you must have been in the character of an accusing spirit, too ladylike to say anything. What did you hint?”
“I hinted nothing,” said Mrs. Corey, descending to the weakness of defending herself. “But I saw quite enough to convince me that the girl is in love with Tom, and the mother knows it.”
“That was very unsatisfactory. I supposed you went to find out whether Tom was in love with the girl. Was she as pretty as ever?”
“I didn’t see her; she was not at home; I saw her sister.”
“I don’t know that I follow you, quite, Anna. But no matter. What was the sister like?”
“A thoroughly disagreeable young woman.”
“What did she do?”
“Nothing. She’s far too sly for that. But that was the impression.”
“Then you didn’t find her so amusing as Tom does?”
“I found her pert. There’s no other word for it. She says things to puzzle you and put you out.”
“Ah, that was worse than pert, Anna; that was criminal. Well, let us thank heaven the younger one is so pretty.”
Mrs. Corey did not reply directly. “Bromfield,” she said, after a moment of troubled silence, “I have been thinking over your plan, and I don’t see why it isn’t the right thing.”
“What is my plan?” inquired Bromfield Corey.
“A dinner.”
Her husband began to laugh. “Ah, you overdid the accusing-spirit business, and this is reparation.” But Mrs. Corey hurried on, with combined dignity and anxiety: “We can’t ignore Tom’s intimacy with them—it amounts to that; it will probably continue even if it’s merely a fancy, and we must seem to know it; whatever comes of it, we can’t disown it. They are very simple, unfashionable people, and unworldly; but I can’t say that they are offensive, unless—unless,” she added, in propitiation of her husband’s smile, “unless the father—how did you find the father?” she implored.
“He will be very entertaining,” said Corey, “if you start him on his paint. What was the disagreeable daughter like? Shall you have her?”
“She’s little and dark. We must have them all,” Mrs. Corey sighed. “Then you don’t think a dinner would do?”
“Oh yes, I do. As you say, we can’t disown Tom’s relation to them, whatever it is. We had much better recognize it, and make the best of the inevitable. I think a Lapham dinner would be delightful.” He looked at her with delicate irony in his voice and smile, and she fetched another sigh, so deep and sore now that he laughed outright. “Perhaps,” he suggested, “it would be the best way of curing Tom of his fancy, if he has one. He has been seeing her with the dangerous advantages which a mother knows how to give her daughter in the family circle, and with no means of comparing her with other girls. You must invite several other very pretty girls.”
“Do you really think so, Bromfield?” asked Mrs. Corey, taking courage a little. “That might do.” But her spirits visibly sank again. “I don’t know any other girl half so pretty.”
“Well, then, better bred.”
“She is very ladylike, very modest, and pleasing.”
“Well, more cultivated.”
“Tom doesn’t get on with such people.”
“Oh, you wish him to marry her, I see.”
“No, no—”
“Then you’d better give the dinner to bring them together, to promote the affair.”
“You know I don’t want to do that, Bromfield. But I feel that we must do something. If we don
’t, it has a clandestine appearance. It isn’t just to them. A dinner won’t leave us in any worse position, and may leave us in a better. Yes,” said Mrs. Corey, after another thoughtful interval, “we must have them—have them all. It could be very simple.”
“Ah, you can’t give a dinner under a bushel, if I take your meaning, my dear. If we do this at all, we mustn’t do it as if we were ashamed of it. We must ask people to meet them.”
“Yes,” sighed Mrs. Corey. “There are not many people in town yet,” she added, with relief that caused her husband another smile. “There really seems a sort of fatality about it,” she concluded religiously.
“Then you had better not struggle against it. Go and reconcile Lily and Nanny to it as soon as possible.”
Mrs. Corey blanched a little. “But don’t you think it will be the best thing, Bromfield?”
“I do indeed, my dear. The only thing that shakes my faith in the scheme is the fact that I first suggested it. But if you have adopted it, it must be all right, Anna. I can’t say that I expected it.”
“No,” said his wife, “it wouldn’t do.”
XIII
HAVING distinctly given up the project of asking the Laphams to dinner, Mrs. Corey was able to carry it out with the courage of sinners who have sacrificed to virtue by frankly acknowledging its superiority to their intended transgression. She did not question but the Laphams would come; and she only doubted as to the people whom she should invite to meet them. She opened the matter with some trepidation to her daughters, but neither of them opposed her; they rather looked at the scheme from her own point of view, and agreed with her that nothing had really yet been done to wipe out the obligation to the Laphams helplessly contracted the summer before, and strengthened by that ill-advised application to Mrs. Lapham for charity. Not only the principal of their debt of gratitude remained, but the accruing interest. They said, What harm could giving the dinner possibly do them? They might ask any or all of their acquaintance without disadvantage to themselves; but it would be perfectly easy to give the dinner just the character they chose, and still flatter the ignorance of the Laphams. The trouble would be with Tom, if he were really interested in the girl; but he could not say anything if they made it a family dinner; he could not feel anything. They had each turned in her own mind, as it appeared from a comparison of ideas, to one of the most comprehensive of those cousinships which form the admiration and terror of the adventurer in Boston society. He finds himself hemmed in and left out at every turn by ramifications that forbid him all hope of safe personality in his comments on people; he is never less secure than when he hears some given Bostonian denouncing or ridiculing another. If he will be advised, he will guard himself from concurring in these criticisms, however just they appear, for the probability is that their object is a cousin of not more than one remove from the censor. When the alien hears a group of Boston ladies calling one another, and speaking of all their gentlemen friends, by the familiar abbreviations of their Christian names, he must feel keenly the exile to which he was born; but he is then, at least, in comparatively little danger; while these latent and tacit cousinships open pitfalls at every step around him, in a society where Middlesexes have married Essexes and produced Suffolks for two hundred and fifty years.
The Rise of Silas Lapham Page 19